by Stephen Laws
“A what?” asked Candy.
“Motorised hang-glider,” said Juliet. “Looks like a two-seater, but there’s only one person in it.”
The microlight circled us as we continued to wave, like some great big kite. Perhaps a thousand or so feet high in that dense greyness. It was impossible to tell whether the pilot was a man or a woman. It dipped and continued to circle, dropping lower each time.
I knew what everyone was thinking then. We’d all had to accept what that small part of the Vorla had told us about what had happened to Edmonville. Under threat of being wiped out for ever in the daylight, we had to believe what the Black Stuff in Trevor had told us if we were going to come to terms with living in this new place. We thought that it had originally wanted us to despair, to believe that we were experiencing a biblical End of the World, complete with its self-created Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—this time with Evil winning out. But Juliet and I also believed that we’d given that small part of the Vorla its own reasons to be terrified. It knew what had happened to the part of it that had escaped into the garden, and into “daylight”. And it knew that we were prepared to do it again. That’s why we believed its new explanation that we had been catapulted out of one existence and into another by some sort of “psychic” earthquake.
But now I knew the others were thinking that maybe the arrival of this newcomer meant that its second story had also been lies, after all. There was something out there. We hadn’t been transported to another fucking dimension, and help was coming.
“It’s all lies,” said Candy, giving voice to the thought. “What the Vorla said about us not being in our own world any more…”
“Don’t count on it,” I said, feeling like a shit. But someone had to say what came next. “It’s just a microlight. It could be another survivor on another crag somewhere. Maybe he or she’s found some petrol, been able to get up into the air. Maybe they’re looking down thinking we’re going to be their rescuers.”
What I’d said didn’t seem to wear down anyone’s optimism. Annie continued to whoop and wave; everyone was all smiles. Alex was ruffling Robin’s hair, and everyone still felt pretty good.
And then the microlight banked, and began to fly off.
“What the hell…?” said Annie.
“Where’s it going?” asked Lisa.
“Christ,” said Alex. “Maybe we frightened it off.”
The drone of the engine began to fade as the microlight dipped again and vanished over the semi-collapsed roofs of buildings on the other side of the street. No one had expected that to happen, and the mood began to change.
“But there still might be others,” said Juliet. “Other survivors, Jay.”
I nodded.
So we followed the microlight as it vanished from sight over the ruined rooftops, catching up with it again when it had reached the edge of the park. It droned and circled once more, as if it were encouraging us to follow, waiting for us to catch up. And as we hurried, the others were all yelling encouraging noises, trying to get the pilot to come down.
We passed the site of the bonfire, and it was a bloody strange feeling looking at the charred remains. We’d been here for nearly a year, but it seemed as if that first night we’d stood by this fire, surrounded by the dead and by a living black sea, was a hundred years ago. Maybe we would still be spending our nights here if it hadn’t been for Annie and Lisa.
“He’s going again,” said Alex, and we followed once more, heading off across the furrowed grass of the park towards the west. Past the bordering fringe of trees was the remains of the apartment block that had fallen into the Chasm and the collapsed flyover. We’d been over every square inch of our plateau, hunting for food and fuel. Alex had called it “maximising our resources”, and when everyone had looked at him he’d apologised and pointed out that he’d been a senior policy officer in local government before the earthquake. He’d burst out laughing then, and everyone had followed suit. Another good moment.
But the others weren’t enjoying themselves so much now as the microlight swung around in the sky, circled over the trees and disappeared once more.
“What the hell is he doing?” demanded Candy.
I looked at Damon. Still with his blank face. It was strange. After everything we’d been through, I expected him to be just as filled with hope as the others—no matter how thin that hope might be. I thought back to the early days, and realised how much he’d changed. Withdrawn, certainly since Wayne’s death. Not hostile any more, but with this air of waiting.
If only I’d known what he’d been waiting for.
We reached the trees and there, circling over the ruins of the apartment block, was the microlight again. Still there, still waiting for us to catch up. People were getting angry now, as we climbed over the shattered concrete blocks and rusted iron girders that had once formed the base of the block. From the top of the mound, we’d be able to see the fallen flyover and the rusted wrecks of vehicles that it had come down on.
But that was not what drew our attention when we climbed to the top of the mound.
“Good Christ!” breathed Lisa, grabbing Robin with a look of joy on her face.
“I don’t believe it,” said Alex breathlessly.
“They came.” Candy was on the verge of weeping. “After all this time, someone came.”
How do I describe the way I felt? Well, I can’t. I just know that this wave came over me as Juliet and I hugged on top of the mound. Hope, yes. Relief, certainly. I know that in that one moment, it was as if everything that had happened after the ’quake destroyed Edmonville…well, it was like none of it had happened. It all belonged to some nightmare time. There wasn’t time to think everything through, only time to feel the joy of knowing that our ordeal was over.
About four hundred yards or so away, just beyond the collapsed flyover, lay the cliff-edge. Two hundred feet or so from that cliff-edge, across the Chasm, was the nearest plateau to ours. It wasn’t possible to see its extent because of the destruction. From our standpoint on this side, we’d guessed that it was maybe a quarter-mile long, but the exact breadth of it was hidden by the other pinnacles and crags surrounding it. The blank greyness framing the ruins gave everything a false perspective. It could be a hundred yards or so wide, a quarter-mile, anything. There was no way of telling. As with every other peak or crag in New Edmonville, we’d spent time yelling across, trying to find out whether there were any other survivors. But there had never been any response. So we went on believing that we were the only ones; everyone else either dead in the earthquake, or devoured afterwards by the Vorla.
But we had been wrong.
There were other survivors.
Dozens and dozens of them.
And they were all here now, standing on the cliff-edge at the other side. Waving and cheering and yelling and hooting as we clambered down the mound, eager to get free of the rubble so that we could run the remainder of the way across the shattered highway and on to the open grass leading up to the cliff-edge. The microlight was still circling overhead, and now we knew why it had been flying on, circling and returning. It had been leading us to these other survivors. I saw Gordon swinging the guitar around his head as he ran jumping over a concrete block and falling full length on the grass. But then he was up and running again, still swinging the guitar as he ran. Alex swung the boy—I mean Robin—up on to his back, piggy back style. Robin was laughing wildly, the first time we’d ever heard him make that noise. Even Candy was smiling as she picked her way over the ruins, and no one had ever seen that expression before. Annie and Lisa had their arms around each other, and I couldn’t resist grabbing Juliet and swinging her round.
They were cheering even louder on the other side as we drew nearer.
Something made me look back, I don’t know what.
Damon was still standing up on the mound, hands on hips and looking down. It was hard to tell from that distance, but I think he was smiling.
“Come on, then!�
�� I yelled back at him. “Aren’t you coming?” He didn’t move. He just stood up there, watching.
I looked at Juliet as we ran.
“There are others,” she breathed. Her face was…I don’t know…bright. I’d thought she was beautiful before. But now she was like no other woman I’d ever seen in my life. My chest was suddenly tight and I felt so good I could hardly breathe.
And then, fifty feet or so from the cliff-edge, we all stopped.
Everyone’s smile faded at the same time.
We stood and we watched as the crowd of people on the other side continued to whoop and cheer and yell.
And everything was wrong.
No one spoke. We just stood, and watched, and listened.
Not understanding at first, then disbelieving. All our hopes, all our joy. All the good feelings about finding someone else alive on these surreal peaks and crags of stone. All of it fading and dying as we realised that New Edmonville had found new nightmares for us. We saw, and we listened.
And then, once again…
We despaired.
Chapter Six
Welcoming Committee
There were about forty, perhaps fifty of them.
It seemed that none of them could be older than fifteen, the youngest perhaps eleven or twelve. And it soon became apparent as they ran and leapt on that far cliff-edge that the whooping and cheering had not been to welcome the residents of the Rendezvous.
They were jeering and yelling abuse at them.
Most of their faces were painted; horizontal finger-streaks on the cheeks, vertical streaks on the forehead; reds, greens and blues. The clothes they wore were ragged and stained, looted from the department stores and fashion shops that they had managed to find in the ruins. Some wore extravagant jewellery around their necks and on their arms; others had tied designer belts around their heads, like improvised sweat bands, with the buckles fastened tight at the back and the ends of the belts hanging down. The overall effect was as if they were wearing some kind of tribal costume.
Alex tried to shout something across the abyss, but the jeering and yelling grew louder, drowning his voice. One of the youngsters, a girl aged about fourteen, picked up a rock from the cliff-edge and threw it across. It came nowhere near the other side, dropping into the Chasm below. But suddenly another figure had appeared behind the “tribe”. He was larger than the rest, and before anyone on either side could react, he seized the girl around the waist and stepped forward to the edge.
Annie was the first to guess what was going to happen, and yelled: “No!”
But there was nothing anyone could do.
The larger figure suddenly pitched the girl forward.
She screamed, twisting in the air as if she might be able to grab the cliff-edge and save herself. But she had been thrown a good six feet out, and dropped screaming from sight. Instantly, the other youngsters were silent, looking down and listening as the girl’s screams faded and faded…and were gone.
“You…you…bastard!” yelled Jay.
The figure looked up from the edge of the Chasm and smiled.
It was a man.
He was about thirty years old, and dressed in the same sort of garb as the others. A black waistcoat from what had once been a trendy designer suit. No shirt. Blue jeans, torn at the knee. Motorbike boots. A red leather lady’s belt tied around his head. The other kids were looking up at him and waiting. This clearly was their leader. No one seemed to be concerned about the girl who had just been flung into the abyss.
The man smiled.
And then he yelled across at the others. It was a wordless, wild shout. And at his call, his followers began yelling and screaming too, carrying on just as before. Taunting and hurling abuse across the gap.
Overhead, the microlight was still circling. Now it seemed to be sharing the manic glee of the newcomers. It had not been leading them to safety or the comfort of other survivors. It had been searching for them, had brought them here to the edge so that they could be taunted.
Jay tried calling across again. But the constant shouting and jeering were meant to drown out his voice. Whoever they were, they were not interested in any kind of civilised contact. Throughout, the man—their leader—stood and smiled across the Chasm as his “tribe” continued their abuse.
When Lisa tried to make contact, hoping that a woman’s voice might make some kind of difference, the man slowly raised an arm and pointed in their direction. As the cheering and the dancing on the cliff-edge continued, he pointed at each of them in turn. Slowly, deliberately, and with the smile never wavering from his face. His motive was clear. He wanted them, each and every one.
Jay moved towards Alex.
“There’s no reason why we should stay here any longer. Is there?”
Wearily, Alex looked back at the whooping crowd on the other side, and shook his head.
When everyone turned and began trudging back the way they’d come, the yelling and cheering grew louder, prompted by their retreat.
The man on the other side folded his arms and watched them go.
Up on the mound that had once been the apartment block, Damon smiled as he watched them climbing back up to him.
“Someone’s come,” he said aloud.
He seemed to sense that, somewhere, Wayne was laughing.
Chapter Seven
The Journal of Jay O’Connor:
The Tower
Back at the Rendezvous, in the communal room, we had what I suppose you could call a “council of war”. Feelings were running high, and no one could be blamed for that. After all, there’d been new hope when the microlight made its appearance, even if, to my mind, there’d been little real chance of rescue. I think everyone really knew that. It was just the prospect of seeing new faces, of having new people to share experiences with; just the knowledge that others had been able to make it on their own and get this far in New Edmonville without having fallen prey to the living dead and the Vorla. To have it all dashed by the appearance of what seemed to be a tribe of wild kids who only wanted to get over here and do God knows what.
No one could forget the sight of that one adult; the guy who had thrown the young girl into the Chasm. Maybe he’d given instructions about throwing stones, or making direct contact, or maybe he just did it for the hell of it. Whatever, it was this act that convinced everyone of the tribe’s hostile intentions. No one thought they wanted to come over and share polite conversation. Fortunately for us, the fissure between their side and ours was wide enough to ensure that they couldn’t come over and visit.
“Know what I think they want?” asked Alex.
Everyone looked at him.
“I think they want everything we’ve got. Food, fuel, everything.”
“Those kids didn’t look scrawny,” said Annie. “For the most part they looked pretty well fed. Maybe they’ve got more over there than we’ve got here.”
Lisa laughed derisively. “Maybe they’ve come to share what they’ve got with us.”
“The man,” I said. “The big fella. I think his body language told us everything we wanted to know. I think dropping the girl over the side was supposed to tell us something about what they have in mind.”
“Why haven’t we heard or seen any of them before?” asked Annie. “I mean, it’s been nearly a year now. And there’re plenty of them. Why suddenly show their faces after all this time? There’s been enough going on over here to let them know that there were survivors on this side.”
We talked everything through, looked at it from every angle imaginable. But, as in the past when considering the bloody strange things that happened in New Edmonville, we ended up talking in circles and getting no nearer any of the answers. We did agree on one thing. In the morning, we’d head back to that cliff-edge and try to make contact again, if that was possible. If they were still there. At the very least, we could show them that they weren’t the only ones capable of making threatening noises. Perhaps it wasn’t such a positive plan, but we c
ouldn’t think of anything better. The generators had been checked, the floodlights and streetlamps were illuminating the Rendezvous in preparation for the night. We were all set to take our worries to bed when the noises began.
Gordon was the first to hear something, pausing just ahead of Juliet and me on the stairs, on our way to our rooms. At first I thought he was turning back to tell us something he’d just remembered. But by the way he held his hand up and cocked his head I knew that he was listening.
It was a thin and distant clattering, somewhere way outside.
“What the hell was that?” exclaimed Annie.
It came again; the sound of metal on metal, a long way away.
By this time, everyone had heard it, and we hurried back down to the communal room to look out of the window into the darkening sky. Annie was in the kitchen area, peering out, but couldn’t see anything. Now the sounds were coming more frequently. Irregular, erratic. Crashings and clatterings, as if someone were at work in a distant junk-yard.
Moments later, everyone was in the front garden, looking every which way for some sign of what was making the noise. The floodlights and streetlamps made it impossible for us to see anything beyond the immediate area because of the glare.
“Where’s it coming from?” asked Candy.
No one answered. The acoustics in New Edmonville caused constant confusion. Sounds here were sometimes flat and hollow; sometimes they seemed to echo off into the vast greyness for ever. It was as if there was a whole new set of rules about sound. It was impossible to tell where the junk-yard sounds were coming from. They were almost constant now. But, thank God, they didn’t seem to be getting any nearer. Even so, given what I’ve said about the acoustics, this didn’t offer anyone a great deal of comfort.
“The Vorla?” said Juliet.
Again, no one answered. It had been a long time since the Black Stuff had put in an appearance, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t out there somewhere beyond the lights, swirling all around us and looking for a way in. But this wasn’t the sound that the Vorla usually made. This wasn’t a sea of voices, mumbling and hissing and screeching at us.
